Legal Innovation & Technology Lab

@ Suffolk Law School

Research, Development, and Scholarship

In addition to its work with clients, the Lab engages in research, development, and scholarship. Below you'll find some of the team's work. For a look at our client work, check out our portfolio.

Speaking the Same Language: Data Standards and Disruptive Technologies in the Administration of Justice

While the legal profession is coming to grips with technological disruption, practitioners serving the needs of those with low and moderate-incomes find themselves struggling to keep up. Insufficient resources clearly impede large scale technological improvements. Yet, the rise of civic coding and the growing legal technology sector suggest an untapped pool of civic and private resources ready to help address this shortfall. We argue that state trial courts are best positioned to leverage these resources for the benefit of low and moderate-income individuals by addressing a key structural impediment to innovation: the lack of clearly-defined judicial data standards.

QnA is a markup language for people with little or no programming experience. It was designed with attorneys in mind and transforms blocks of text into interactive question and answer sessions (QnAs). These QnAs can be used as stand-alone expert systems or in the aid of rule-based document construction. Plus, they can be fun, and the entire project is open source.

This tool is designed to help presenters and meeting organizers gather and prioritize audience questions, resulting in a more democratic and focused Q&A session. People pull out their phones or laptops, type up their questions/ideas and vote on their peers'. Then an algorithm ranks the content and everyone is given a list of the "best" entries. Pros: (1) it gets rid of soliloquies masquerading as questions; (2) it provides a safe space for people who otherwise might not ask questions; and (3) it helps moderators actually get to the content an audience wants addressed. Biggest Con: participants must have access to an internet connected device.